Dickens probably wrote the following portion of 'Shakspeare and Newgate': from the beginning to 'all possible audiences' (p. 25).
Dickens may also have written or extensively rewritten much of the following section: from 'Seven or eight years' (p. 25) to 'listening constables' (p. 26).
The idea propounded in the opening of this essay - that art can help make life bearable, and that the alternative to this saving grace is violence and depravity - was a notion that Dickens held to be profoundly true and that he wove into many of his writings.

Harry Stone; © Bloomington and Indiana University Press, 1968. DJO gratefully acknowledges permission to reproduce this material.